Quote Originally Posted by mallleable View Post
Plus, I think it would make Calyx's character a lot more interesting if he figured out shard system on his own instead of just 'an Ascian told him.'
Again though, the numbers given to each shard, and calling them reflections and source in the first place, was a nomenclature entirely invented by the Ascians. The numbers are arbitrary, it's not something you can just "find out on your own" given enough research. By all means, he could have found out about the shard system on his own, but he wouldn't be able to know that his shard is called the ninth.

Therefore, the origin of this information has to be an Ascian, and Calyx either got it straight from one of them or from a third party that heard it from them.

The interesting question is whether this was an information willingly given to Calyx by an Ascian, which would imply that the Ascians were attempting to groom him to work for their ends, just like how they did with Unukalhai in Heavensward, or if Calyx took this information by force. Could he have defeated an Ascian and taken a peek into his memories? This could have been the moment that Preservation learned about the existence of other reflections, leading them to take a sudden change of focus towards taking Aether from other reflections and designing that portal to the source.